Messages - Lord Janos

Oh it has integrated sound, then yeah that'll be fine. I listen to music on my laptop from it's dreadful speakers and it's fine for me. Monitors will come down in price so yeah I'm not too fussed about particulars, although I don't know what defines a quality monitor from a crappy one.

I think it's missing a sound card, a monitor, and things like speakers/keyboard/mouse, but I think I've got a big 19" monitor somewhere lying around (it's heavy as hell though so I'll probably invest in an LCD monitor or whatever the slim ones are). So that'd be another £100 or so if we're being conservative.

To be honest £600-£650 for that system is a great price and probably a worthwhile long term investment. I don't know anything about sound cards and their quality so I may have to hand that one back over to you PatMan!

Something like http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151368 for the case would be all I'd need. The fans included in that case would be welcome as well, especially considering the amount of power those components will be generating.

I really appreciate the effort you're going to to help out PatMan, thanks a lot!

Ideally I'd have it sent to me completed, but my brother works in the IT industry so could help me out putting it together, so that's an option (especially if I can get the parts separately for cheaper).

It's been a while since I posted on the forums but I've been lurking around for a couple of weeks or so recently.

Anyway, here's the situation: I bought a laptop last summer and I hate it. I hate typing with it, I hate playing games on it, I hate the keyboard, and I hate Vista. In short, laptops suck. Once my contract at my flat has run out, I get 5 weeks no rent before I move out. I'm thinking of using that money to buy a new desktop for myself. On that budget I'd have £525 to spend, which equates to roughly $765.

I've still got a few months left before I'd buy it, so if anyone has any suggestions on a good rig (I want it to run Starcraft 2 flawlessly for mucho online gaming), for that price range (because I don't know what's good anymore... I'm so out of sync with the computing world nowerdays) it'd be much appreciated.

Valve = All half life games which are the top 3 best shooting games ever. Counterstrike which A LOT of people regard as the best Multiplayer game of all time.and very recently Portal and Team fortress 2.

Soon to be left 4 dead

Technically Counter-Strike wasn't created by Valve. I remember when it was first released as a mod by fans (Goose and Cliff I think). But you're right, the engine was Valve's and it wouldn't have been possible without the Half-Life engine.

On-topic I think it's easy to make judgements and take the positives from your favourite companies and say they'd make the best game ever... but that's just not going to happen is it.

Come on Janos, you've been here since the beginning and your not going to join the fun? Of course I don't have my game yet either, waiting on Amazon.

I will join the fun eventually! I just don't see the point until I at least get my internet back. Veering off topic would it be possible to choose whose creatures appear in your game? So if I wanted to see some of your creatures and some other forum members in my game is there a way to engineer that?

If you're in a financial pickle and you're not too worried about getting spore nownowNOW! then I'd advise waiting.

Don't get me wrong Spore is GREAT, I've had a LOT of fun so far... but it could be so much more with a few wrinkles ironed out. There are some general gameplay issues which would benefit greatly from having a second look by the devs.

I would definately recommend getting Spore... eventually. Just needs a bit of spit-shine, and I hope EA will give Maxis the funds for that.

Experience has taught me that typically it's best to wait for patches for games anyway, unless the company is Blizzard in which case they are usually playable straight out of the box. So yeah I'll probably wait a little while.

Mmm I might just wait until I sort out my router and get the internet working properly again. Maybe I'll just wait until all the bugs and stuff are ironed out actually and Maxis have patched it properly.

I haven't been around for a while and was totally shocked to see the adverts that Spore was out last week - I just hadn't thought about the game for ages and there it was on the shelves.

My internet on my laptop is pretty screwed atm, and I might buy myself a copy soon once I get my new bank account details through, however will I need internet to run Spore? Or are there pre-loaded creatures et al that could entertain me prior to me getting internet back on my laptop?

As I recall, the best advice when buying a computer is to visit your local computer shop (find one run by genuine computer nerds, not a soulless corporation like PC World) and ask them what they can build for your budget. Maybe give that a try?

I never buy these products from local stores. Retail prices are a complete rip-off. I only purchase electronics from the internet, the prices are much more sensible.

Well I'm off to university this Fall, and my computer blew up a while ago, and what I'm on now is too cumbersome and slow to take with me that it just wouldn't be practical. Therefore I'm looking for a laptop which I can use for essays and just general perusing... graphics aren't that important just a laptop which runs quickly and which can be used effectively for all my administrative needs - I have the X360 for gaming!

I'm setting my budget for about £300 (about $600), and would appreciate it if anybody could give any advice or refer some good websites as I don't really know much about laptops.